


No Words Will Come Between Us

by windandthestars



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Legal Drama, Other: See Story Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 22:13:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windandthestars/pseuds/windandthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't care, Billy and neither should you. We were right. I know that and so do you."</p><p>Legal AU.  Mac can't let go of her last case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Words Will Come Between Us

**Author's Note:**

> Minor angst and violence (TW: mention of rape and description of murder). General spoilers for the series. 
> 
> Many thanks to Phyllis who enabled this in so many ways. Title and the original inspiration from the video for Kina Grannis' Without Me.

It's Sloan who finally convinces him he needs to do something about the "Kenzie situation". Will's not exactly sure why it's his job to care, Mac's perfectly capable of taking care of herself as far as he's concerned, but he knows he won't be able to eat his lunch in peace if he stays, so he throws on his jacket and heads out.

It's late fall, cold by anyone’s standards. Gusts of wind promising snow rattle the windows as he makes his way up one flight of stairs after another. Why MacKenzie still lived in a hole in the wall was beyond him. The DA's office didn't pay that well, but it paid better than this. She’d been back from Afghanistan for two years, even with the wardrobe she insisted on having, there’s no way she couldn’t scrap together first and last for a nicer place.

"MacKenzie?" He knocks and calls again. He doesn't want to disturb anyone, on the off chance someone's actually around at this time of day, but there's no answer on her cell and he doesn't know if she has a landline let alone what the number might be. 

"Mac." He hits the door a little harder than necessary, stepping to the side instinctively when it opens suddenly.

"I thought you might stand there yelling."

He stares at her for a moment, not exactly speechless, but surprised enough that it takes him a moment to come up with a response that won't get the door slammed in his face. "They won't let you in a courtroom looking like that."

"I'm suspended remember." Her eyes flash dangerously, angry now that the shock of her dismissal has worn off, but she steps back to let him through the door when he nods toward the empty space behind her.

There may be questions about her competence, and his integrity, at the office but that isn't a conversation he wants to have in the hallway. He pulls the door shut behind him and toes off his shoes. Mac was a stickler about leaving shoes at the door, after a day in heels she appreciated the luxury of being able to walk around barefoot. The pebbles he liked to track in on his shoes drove her nuts. "This isn't your fault Mac."

She brushes off the comment with a shrug of her shoulders, a lopsided up and down, before sweeping her hair from her eyes. Loose and tangled around her shoulders it hangs unkempt and wild.

"Could I get a glass of water?" He's baiting her hoping for a response. Her reluctance to push his buttons, unintentionally or not, was unsettling.

"Why are you here, Will? You're supposed to be in court this afternoon. Rodriguez, right?"

"Elliot's covering for me. Sloan spent half the morning in my office asking if I had called you yet. With her hovering, I couldn't get the paperwork together in time."

"I called her back last night."

"At 3 am." The absurdity of the statement seems lost on her. "Do you mind if I take a seat somewhere? I just walked up five flights of stairs to have this conversation, which by the way I'm as happy to avoid as you are. We can sit and talk about how horrible the weather is for five minutes and then I'll leave. I'll tell Sloan you were a pain in the ass like you always are, you can come back to work, and we can go on pretending like Charlie isn't selling out for giving into political pressure."

He moves past her as he speaks, ignoring the quiet sounds of protest she makes, her hand slipping from his arm. He hasn't been in this particular apartment before, but all the places Mac has lived are similar in their cramped, awkward layout. The kitchen is to his right which means the living room should be on his- He stops in the doorway and turns back toward her, questioning.

"I can explain."

"What the fuck is going on here?" He turns back to the living room, scanning the space again to confirm his suspicions. There are news clippings and photos taped to the walls, and multicolored strands of string filling the void he assumes is normally filled by furniture and a random scattering of books.

"Charlie said we couldn't work on the case at the office so I thought-"

"You would turn your living room into the world's largest ball of yarn."

"I needed a way to see the connections between-" 

"You are aware this makes you look like you've gone totally insane." 

"I haven't."

She steps toward him, not far enough to bridge the space between them, she's still standing in the foyer, but it's enough to remind him to take a breath before he gives himself an aneurysm. He's used to arguing with her, their voices raised to push against the confines of the space between them- both of them dancing backward and forward, arms crossed, bottom lip drawn in- not yelling down the hall in frustration.

"I know that, but you are aware of the implications."

Her voice drops as she moves closer, still hanging back, cautious in a way that makes him wonder if maybe he’s being a bit too harsh. The sight of her living room had taken him by surprise. She should have warned him, but then again she hadn't exactly invited him in. "I don't care, Billy and neither should you. We were right. I know that and so do you."

"If Charlie gets wind of this you're done. No self-respecting law firm will hire you after you're fired for an ethics violation. I shouldn't be here. With you gone it's only a matter of time before I’m out of work and all my cases are overturned on appeal."

"Why do you think I wasn't taking your calls? You weren't supposed to show up on my doorstep. You weren't supposed to know about this until I had some solid evidence, until I had something you could take in to Charlie."

"There isn't anything there. There is no case. This isn't Afghanistan. You can't right a wrong through perseverance and sheer stubbornness. You don’t get brownie points for changing the world."

"Are you telling me it's not worth the risk?" 

He’s the one whose voice is rising now. He wonders vaguely if her neighbors are more accommodating than they were last time the two of them had stood arguing like this. He doesn't need the cops showing up now, not with her living room looking like some sort of criminal lair. "This isn't some death threat you can ignore. This isn’t political posturing. This is your career we’re talking about, not an empty threat."

"I'm not suggesting it is. I'm suggesting- I'm suggesting you shut up for a minute and let me explain. Sit down.” She gestures toward the empty living room floor. “I'll get you a glass of water. You're turning red."

"I just walked up five flights of stairs." He's intending to play it off, bring up the fact that he's ruined his knee for a week coming to see her but she ducks into the kitchen before he can get another word in. He waits as cabinet doors click shut and the faucet turns on. 

"I don't have any ice," she apologizes handing him a glass, "or any place to sit in there but there's a couple of stools here if you don't mind gaudy orange paint from the 60s."

The walls are truly horrible as is the Formica countertop, but he slides onto the stool next to where she's perched without commenting on either. He’d come here to make sure she was all right; he wasn't leaving until he knew she wasn't going to get both of them fired with whatever insane plan she had cooked up.

"You're not helping put in wells or rewriting the legal system. This is a senator's son we're talking about."

"And Jennifer Johnson. We're talking about Jennifer Johnson. She was 17. She applied to NYU the month before she died. She wanted to study film so she could make documentaries on issues affecting the global community. She had plans to do great things with her life but then some senator's son decided his father wouldn't like the scandal of his son being brought up on rape charges so he killed her. He left her unconscious on the bathroom floor. It took her an hour to die, Will. She laid on that tile floor half naked for an hour before she died. She didn't deserve that. No one deserves that and you're telling me we don't have a case."

"There's no-"

"Shut up."

"I'm not suggesting what he did was right-"

"You might as well be." It's a low blow, one that leaves a sour taste in her mouth. "Ignoring injustice makes you culpable. That's not the law; that's universally accepted ethics."

"Mac." His outburst quiets her for a moment and she regards him skeptically. "What happened was indefensibly wrong. The kid should rot in jail, but there's not enough evidence. Trying him in the media may ruin the Senator's career, but it's not going to bring Jennifer back and it certainly won't help us win the case. We can't bring him in until we know we can nail him."

"So he gets away with it." She slumps and his fingers twitch as he resists the urge to reach out and brush her hair back behind her ear. She doesn't need him to start something neither of them can walk away from. She needs him to help her clean up her living room, move her furniture, and disappear back to the office before she gets out of the shower.

She doesn't need him to tell her that there's a part of him that likes seeing her so defeated even if the sadness in her eyes rips his heart in two. He may not have opposed her being hired by the DA's office, he may have inadvertently suggested to Charlie that he would be an idiot to pass up someone with a resume half as impressive as hers, but that in no way meant he was over what had happened between them, traitorous fingers or no.

"Why don't we clean up your art deco display and let the investigators do their job? We can talk about this when you stop returning calls at 3 am and Charlie stops breathing down my neck." She doesn't seem convinced but she nods and follows him into the living room.

They make quick work of the display. Most of it gets shoved into an empty Amazon box, the rest of it goes in the trash as he calls and orders takeout. Her usual has changed, but it’s all there on the menu outlined with circles and arrows. He leaves her the spread, footing the bill, and slips a note in with the extra menu promising coffee the next morning. He may not be able to win their case, but he sure as hell can get her back her job.


End file.
